Author: Smart City Memphis

Many politicians secretly love reappraisal. It is a time of complicated assessment equations, mind-boggling financial and legal nuances, public confusion about the processes, and, despite rhetoric to the contrary, windfalls for...

I got homesick today for Memphis. So I took the RTA down to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland.It would be a gross oversimplification to say, as many do, that this museum “lost” this museum and it...

Coach Cal needs to tell the Memphis Regional Chamber about the dangers of “bulletin board motivation” for your opponents. As the University of Memphis head basketball coach, Calipari has warned his team that smart...

Bill Freeman was buried yesterday. Somehow the world seems less fun.Bill was a retired Air Force colonel, with a booming voice that could keep you in rapt attention if he was merely reciting the alphabet. It was a voice that...

It’s a glimpse of Memphis as it could have been. The spur that connects I-40 to Highway 51 (Thomas Street) is a 1.2 mile green escape from the billboards that dominate Memphis’ expressways. On the other hand, Bill Morris Parkway...

Vancouver co-director of planning Larry Beasley was my guest today on “Smart City.” Vancouver is regularly named as one of North America’s most appealing cities. I wanted to know why, so I asked Larry.According...

Yesterday, I took a walk around the core of downtown, the part of downtown most visitors see. Walking up and down Union, Monroe and Madison between Front and Third, I saw very few people on the street, new (and old) vacancies,...

If term limits are an idea whose time has come, perhaps a good place to start would be the members of the more than 150 public boards in Memphis and Shelby County.Media attention regarding terms limits concentrates on elected...

Whatever your political persuasion, as Memphians, you should be closely watching the budget moving through the U.S. Congress. It could spell big problems for our city.The political dynamics of the Capitol have been shifting from...

Trees are the lungs of the city. That’s why the bulldozing of 150 acres of trees in Cordova by an uncaring developer is the equivalent of a pulmonary embolism for Memphis and Shelby County.The United States Forest Service says...